It’s the only Great Game worth playing (everyone knows that, but some people unfortunately still don’t recognise it). However football (soccer, that’s to say, not the US pretence) has had its image distinctly tarnished in recent years. Not least by accusations of massive corruption surrounding operations of at the international association, FIFA. But, arguably even worse, by the injections of ill-gotten funds into two London football clubs, by two eastern European mining oligarchs.
See http://www.minesandcommunities.org/article.php?a=12339&l=1.